FOUR UN military observers — three Britons and a New Zealander — evaded capture by rebels in Sierra Leone with a daring trek through the jungle. Britain’s defence ministry said Friday the the observers had been working with Kenyan peacekeepers in Makeni when they became aware of the “fairly heavy” presence of rebels from the […]
Chris McGreal in Freetown The surge of foreboding among Freetown’s long-suffering citizens is not made any easier by the realisation that their peninsula city is little better than a sprawling trap. Foreigners may scan the skies for the rescue helicopters, but there is nowhere for Sierra Leonians to run if Foday Sankoh and his rebels […]
Andy Colquhoun RUGBY Picking a Springbok squad for the coming tests against England and Canada has probably been as difficult as shooting fish in a barrel. Once Nick Mallett and his panel of Francois Davids and Wynand Claassen had swept aside the belly-up Sharks and Bulls bobbing about uselessly on the surface, they’d have found […]
A potential commitment to renewable energy comes close on the heels of predictions of solar power as a possible multibillion-dollar market Terry Macalister BP Amoco is considering a massive expansion of its renewable energy programme over and above the $250-million it has already earmarked to spend over the next five years. In a move that […]
NEWSINBRIEF Salary increases of more than 12% are on the cards for the president, deputy president, Cabinet ministers and long- serving MPs. The commission charged with regulating public representatives’ salaries has proposed a three-tier remuneration structure for parliamentarians and ministers according to their length of service, the highest of which will allot a 15,5% increase. […]
with fraud Darran Morgan Six members of the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands child protection unit (CPU) in Pietermaritzburg have been charged with fraud after an internal investigation revealed irregularities in informer payment claims going as far back as 1996. Most of the allegedly fraudulent claims were made out to a police reservist who, according to a member […]
Peter Dickson Port Elizabeth, gateway to one of South Africa’s most impoverished regions, is gearing up for an economic miracle that could ironically put immense pressure on the city as the homeless and jobless compete for living space. A decade ago 30 000 people poured into Saldanha and set up informal settlements, built on the […]
Nigella Lawson BODY LANGUAGE There’s a poster, a huge sky-stretching poster: it features a woman, or her almost bare torso; shoulders, neck, a transparent black T-shirt over unconcealed – indeed, heightened – nipples. It’s an advertisement for Vogue.com (that’s Vogue-dot-com) though the dot is typographically missing. I don’t say it isn’t witty (and the other […]
Anyone who argues for socialism will find allies in the ANC, the party’s secretary general said this week Jaspreet Kindra African National Congress secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe this week committed the party to the cause of socialism and said South Africa should follow the Chinese and Cuban socialist models of economic policy. In a wide-ranging […]
Public reaction to sentencing practices has probably had the most significant impact upon the legitimacy of the judiciary. Over the past 12 months we have witnessed considerable dissatisfaction as a result of perceived lenience in the imposition of sentences for rape. For these reasons a comprehensive report authored by leading academic Dirk van Zyl Smit […]